The show has telegraphed for a while that it is 1963 and the wedding of Sterling's daughter the day after the JFK assassination was laid out early in the season.

 This week had little to do with the office and lots to do with relationships, being set in the dog days of August when everyone bails out of the city and its heat.  Don had a little romantic fling in Rome balanced with becoming Conrad Hilton's work slave, after his wife, Betty, got her first kiss from the politico brought in to save her Junior League project.  

This got woven in with the daughter putting a kiss on a neighborhood boy in the bath tub and then beating hell out of her brother for teasing her about it.  Betty intones that first kisses are special and that it is downhill from there.  She also seeks to impart pre sexual revolution 1960s wisdom to her daughter that girls don't kiss boys, they wait for boys to kiss them.

 Pete Campbell gets into the act as the other running plot in the hour being utterly miserable and lonely in New York while his wife is away and coming in to save the day for an au pair who spilled wine on the owner's dress when he catches her shoving what at first looks like a wedding dress down the trash chute.

Pete does essentially the same thing to his marriage when he forces himself upon the girl, gets called on it by the neighbor, and then gets teary about something unexpressed when his wife returns home.

(It is also the way fiery red head Joan Holloway stays in the series when she shows up as the manager Pete demands to see in order to have the dress replaced for the object of his desire.  Could be it will also be the way in which the one night stand gets back to Pete's wife to further complicate his little world.) 

But Don and Betty did an uncommunicative dance that will surely rise again.  They connected a little in Rome.  They flirted in Rome.  They clearly did the nasty in Rome as they wake up cuddly in bed before Conrad Hilton calls to roust Don from romance in Rome to review his business.  Betty at first flops back in bed in frustration before heading to the shower from whence she came, dropping the towel, and heading back into the bathroom where Don is showering and undoubtedly about to receive a happy ending of sorts.

And Don seems to have woken up to Betty a little bit as well after a few caricatured Italian men hit on Betty in her fancy, and terribly dated, up "do" while she waits with a drink in an outside cafe.  In some ways he sees her as an object of desire rather than a mother and drag on his free time.  

In short, it seems as though he is seeing the value of emotional connection as Betty is realizing how little emotional connection they have.

This comes to the fore at the end, as Don is home taking off his shoes sitting on the bed and seeks to be romantic and tender with her, as she bristles and goes cold on him, lamenting her suburban life.

Don had a charm of the coliseum sent to put on her bracelet as a reminder of their time there.  It's the first sentimental thing we have seen this guy do in three seasons.  Betty seems untouched by it all, saying simply that she can fiddle with it as she tells the story in Stepford Wife fashion.  The episode ends with Don standing in the bedroom confused by the emotionless response as Betty heads out of the scene going into the bathroom.

And that ending shows the damaging effects of not communicating openly in tender moments about hurts.  Silence during gentle times comes roaring out in anger during argumentative times making matters worse.  Stiff upper lips lead to emotional fat lips. 

Will they get closer?  Will Betty bolt for politics?  Will Conrad Hilton impart words of wisdom?  Will Roger Sterling in laments over being with someone young enough to be his daughter as he gets iced out of his daughter's wedding the we KNOW will be a big episode on the day after JFK gets shot.

If there was a lesson learned in the show, however, it is the value of making time for one another in a marriage.  Pete Campbell has it figured out, and Don seems to have realized the value. 

Once in a while the best thing that can be done for a family system is for the parents to get out of it for a while and remember why they fell in love with one another in the first place.

And the show illustrates that in three story arcs of Pete Campbell as a young married, Don and Betty Draper hip deep in it all, and Roger Sterling who laments its loss. 

Oddly enough, the best message for married couples coming out of that show might be to head to bed early, telling the kids you are going to watch Mad Men together and then not watch the show and communicate to each other in ways that remind you of those times when you were madly in love with each other.

Mad Men can't show that.  Gentle Men can.  Don showed his gentle side, but will it have to be sublimated for him to remain one of the Mad Men? I mean, it is a study of the dark side of the 1960s, after all, and Don Draper is no Rob Petri from The Dick Van Dyke Show.